I finally bought it... My 2 Cents

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Well...I did it. I bought Pool of Radience 2. I knew I shouldn't do it, but like that first hit off the pipe, I did.

I got the game on Friday, and have played about 30 hours of the game since then. Most of that time from saturday night till 3am Tuesday morning. To be blunt, I still don't know what I am doing, or what's going on. Don't get me wrong, I have a general sence....My party has been sent here to kill hordes of monsters and to smash every piece of FURNITURE that has been placed in my path. Other than that I'm clueless.

The amaising thing about POR so far is that I HAVEN'T run into ANY bugs(other than a few slow downs, but that is probably a memory problem..but I don't know why since I have 500megs of ram). I'm playing on windows ME with a Pent IV processor.

The graphics, as far as the Characters and the Monsters and Spells are concerned, are amaizing. Unfortunately, I don think that the background art is too impressive. Once you get into the dunegon it seems to be the same damn wall paper over and over again. It's funny. I played the original POR "gold box" the day it was released; and sometime I get a sence of DejaVu when I'm playing this game. Not because of the story, but because of the turn based combat and the relentless dungeon walls. The sad part is that, as I remember it, the original had a better plot and story line.

The 3ed rules are a JOKE. Now, I'm still playing these games with a 1st edition mind set, (I stopped playing pnp back before 2ed came out), so I may be a little biased. But I thought the whole point of 3ed rules was to make the characters more "Custom" and to make play easier and more enjoyable. These guys have failed miserably. Baulders Gate and BGII had more character classes, and more races! You could customise your characters with some amaising KITS, and actually got to pick your Weapons prof and your abilities and special abilities. As far as I can tell the only thing you can pick is an increase in your ability stats. And you start out with such shitty stats that you really need to get more. If you are a Fan of the BG series you will be dissapointed in this. If you liked IWD, you will be dissapointed in this. If you have nothing better to do with your time or money you might play it.

The bottom line......I'm geting ready to go back and play some more the minit I finish this letter. Why? I have Issues. Lots of personal issues.

[This message has been edited by Llandon (edited October 17, 2001).]

 

I was afraid of this. Why is it that a game hypes itself as being the first CRPG with third edition rules and then impliments them so poorly. Don't take PoR:2 as any indication of what 3rd edition rules are like. I feel they are the best incarnation of DnD rules to date. It's just that PoR:2 realy didn't impliment them as they are supposed to be because they switched over to 3rd edition in the middle of design while still using a game engine designed with 2nd edition rules in mind. I third edition you have more classes, races, and customibility. You can assign feats and skills and really make interesting characters (also bear in mind third edition has prestige classes to add to the uniqueness and fun). PoR really gives you limited classes and almost zero customization of your characters. And IMO the point buy is set way too low. 25 point buy? For a dungeon crawl game? I prefer 32 point buy. While you can't get super high scores like you could in IWD by rerolling all day (though I'm sure there are plenty of editors to give the stats you want), 32 gives you plenty of room to work with and of course you can increase stats over the course of play as well. Anyway, in brief, don't let PoR:2 sour you on third edition rules. It's a poor implimentation at best. I'm sure the Bioware team will do better with 3rd edition when NWN comes out.

 

Yeah, there is little of third edition in the game by all accounts. Skills, feats, proficiencies (actually a type of feat), attributes, class, race, gender, etc are all choices in 3e. Sadly, this is not true in PoR2. Bleh.

As for the stats being low, it does seem that way. However, you do need to realize that 3e gives stat bonuses starting at 12, whereas 1st didnt' give anything until you had a 15. Basically, for 3e to 1e comparison, 12=15, 14=16, 16=17, 18=18. If you make that mental adjustment, it doesn't look so bad.

Aloha
Vormaerin

 

Well....Hopefully 3ed rules will be better implemented in NWN. But 3ed rules aside, this game is still weak. One other thing that sticks out im my mind as a problem is the mapping and party movement system. Your characters need to stay together! You can only move and see what is right around you. In other words. I can pull up the map, see where I want to go, but I CAN'T just click on that spot and go there. I need to move my entire party one screen at a time to get there. I don't understand this. I don't understand why even bother to have a theif....You can't scout ahead of your party becaues the whole party has to move together. Hide in shadows? Sneak attack and backstab? forget it.

I'm wondering if anyone can tell me ANYTHING that was done properly in this game so I might have something to look forward to.

 

ok first id like to say........dont hate because of what im about to say...but i LOVE POR just as much as icewind dale,baldurs gate and planescape torment theyre all good games in differnt kind of ways.
POR have really great graphics(its just my opinion)and i like the turn based gameplay



[This message has been edited by jesper898 (edited October 17, 2001).]

 

The main problem with this is, with 25 point buy, it's hard to get at those higher numbers, and mostly impossible with a multiclass character, especially if you wish to multi with a spellcasting class. A simple fighter or barbarian can do well enough with 25 point buy. For that matter, even a mage or sorcerer can go with 25. I just think using 25 for a multi fighter/mage, lets say, is fairly tough. Now you can create a playable character, but not a good one. The same could be applied to a fighter/cleric, a cleric, a monk, a paladin, a monk/sorcerer (you get my point). Of course it depends on your game style. Some single classes do well at 25, others lag behind, and a lot of multi classes are poor at that number. It's all a matter of play, and for my taste, 32 is the way to go IMO.

 

Well, the 25 pt total is tight, I personally prefer 28 (quite surprising what those extra three points can do for you). But I don't have a problem with a character starting with a 14 or 16 in prime areas. Spell casters can boost the stat to the necessary levels (for casting high level spells) over time. And multiclass spellcasters aren't going to be casting the very high level spells anyway.

Aloha
Vormaerin

 

Yes....they should have made the point buy larger than 25. They should have done LOTS of things that they didn't do.

 

At first I thought the 25 point buy was kind of too hard to make a good character. But after playing for about 30 hours and finding alot of magical items that help boost those ability scores, I think it was all in the interest of game balance. I personally don't like to play a game that is too easy. I have played BG, BG2, IWD and have edited my characters (abilities and XP) when playing a second time. If you are not careful, it makes the game too easy and boring. The excitement comes from having to reload and rethink your combat/fighting strategy after your party got their *sses kicked! Isn't that part of the game and the fun?

 

I have read that many of the items in the game are Diabloish in the enhancements they dish out. Me personally...I'd rather see a higher point buy system and more *normal* magical items. Just my opinion. And for my own personal PnP games, I much prefer 32 point buy, and I don't find it outrageous (yeah, I know noone here has said that but I suspect someone will come along and do just that). I've read a couple of reviews complaining about the ability scores being too low, but then that's more from people who rerolled for hours till they got jackup up scores in other games. Take those complaints as you wish I suppose.

 

The point buy really doesn't bother me that much. What really bothers me is that I still don't really know what I'm supposed to be doing. I'm in the Halls of Stone right now, and I am just about fed up. The mapping and movement interface sucks. If I want to back track to another part of the level it's a real pain in the ass. I am getting bored with the combat, and I DON'T KNOW WHERE TO GO OR WHAT TO DO! sorry for the yelling. I've covered all of the map that I can see, but there are a few areas I can't go because of magical locks and a Barley keyed door. There is also a place which looks like it could be a secert room....but I can't locate the door. Someone mentioned turning "rolls?" on, but I can't figure out how to do that. I was faciniated and really pulled into the story in BG, BGII, and IWD, but I'm getting bored with this game rather quickly. I'm still at it, but I wish I was more excited about playing POR.